Like You Eat
by uhpockuhlipz
Summary: Santana's struggles with eating disorders. Brittana. Spoilers for 3x03


**Trigger warning: eating disorder**

"Oh, like you eat."

The words catch Santana off-guard and she feels her smug smirk slip. Dark eyes dance down and away as her lips slowly lose their curl. Since when do other people notice what she does or doesn't do? Since when do they care? She at last manages to lift her gaze only to find that everyone was watching Mercedes still. Oh, wait. She's mistaken noticing for caring again. Her bad.

Santana rolls her eyes and brushes her hands down the front of her Cheerios skirt as she composes herself. No one even caught her reaction. Or if they did, they aren't going to say something. Good to know she can depend on her teacher and her "family". Seriously. They are knocking her over with their observational skills. Bitches. Ugh, whatever. She so doesn't need these morons. She just needs the stage and the singing and the dancing and the…. Brittany. She needs Brittany.

And god_damn_, she needs Mercedes to shut the fuck up and sit _down _already. The girl does more whining about Rachel than she does singing. No wonder she doesn't get more solos (still more solos than her, though- and Tina and Brittany and Quinn and pretty much everyone else in the club for that matter. So fuck her).

When the practice ends, Santana slips out of the auditorium ahead of everyone else. No one would notice, no one would care. That's what she tells herself as she quickly makes her way around a corner, through the bathroom's door, and straight into a stall. Santana is careful to hang her bag on the door's hook so that it wouldn't give her away as she falls to her knees in front of the bowl and curls her arms around it. Dark eyes stare into the water, the smell of poorly-cleaned toilet filling her nostrils. It isn't too bad compared to how it smells after.

She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against her arm, trying to both talk herself into it and talk herself out of it. Eating disorders, she knew, were awful. Bulimia is worse because the acid in vomit wears away at tooth enamel, which can eventually cause teeth to fall out. Too noticeable, too obvious, too messy. It is therefore a rare go-to for her, and then only on her particularly fat days. Anorexia, now, that's something she can get behind. No food means no extra pounds. That's not a bad thing. She's the captain! She has a perfect image to maintain. She can control it. She can…

"Santana?" There's a tap on the stall door, a concerned voice flooding the room.

"Go away, Britt," Santana snaps, squeezing her eyes shut tighter. Okay, so maybe there is one person who's family, one person who cares, one person who actually shows concern. She always has. Brittany could never not care, especially about Santana. And she knows she'd done a damned good job of keeping this a secret from her, until today.

Which is why she is not surprised when she hears shuffling that signifies Brittany is crawling beneath the stall door. "San. Please don't," she whispers, edging closer. "Please…" She lifts a hand to rest it on Santana's shoulder, but Santana jerks away and curls closer to the toilet.

"Go away, Britt," she says again, but she moans it this time and, holy fuck, is she crying? She hates crying over this shit. She's supposed to be badass. She's supposed to be in control. She cries, sure, but usually on command and she did _not _give these tears permission to come, but here they are pouring down her face. Fuck. Fuck shit. She only wants to be in control of something in her fucking life! Was that so fucking hard? She wants to be perfect, she wants to have some fucking say over how she lives. She just… Why is it all so hard? The Sue thing, the glee thing…

The gay thing.

"Never. I'm not going anywhere. Don't push me away, Santana." Her hand comes up and rests between Santana's shoulder blades again, but this time she doesn't pull away from the contact. A sob rips up from her chest, rocks her as she lifts away from the toilet bowl and flings herself into Brittany's arms. They are curled together on the bathroom floor, Brittany whispering soft words of love and comfort, promises about making it better. When Santana feels wetness drip against her forehead, she realizes Brittany is crying, too. And, God, she only just realized that she's hurting Brittany with all of this. It's not just herself anymore. It's her most important person too.

"I'm sorry," she breathes, clinging harder. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She chants the words against Brittany's skin, fingers curled into her uniform top. There are no words she can speak, no words to describe the fear and the pain and the stress. And she realizes she doesn't need any of that with the other girl. Brittany knows. She's always understood Santana.

"It gets better, Santana," she whispers, hugging her tight. "I promise we'll make it better. Together." They're silent for a long time, crying together until Santana's sobs quiet and Brittany is just cradling her against her chest, rocking her as one might a small child. "You hungry?" She asks it quietly, coaxingly. "We can get like. A salad or something."

And it's exactly what Santana doesn't want to do. She doesn't want food, she doesn't want to eat. Even though her stomach is rumbling, she only wants to get up, go home, and sleep for hours. But it's hurting both of them and she had to learn how to meet Brittany halfway on promises some time. She had to grow up. She had to get better.

"Starving."


End file.
